New Batman film 'set eight years in the future' (watch trailer)

Director Christopher Nolan has revealed juicy details about his third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, admitting it will be set eight years after the last.

Talking to Empire magazine, Nolan said Christian Bale's lead character was older and "not in a great state".

"It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place," Nolan said.

"Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after The Dark Knight. So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state."

Nolan also said the highly anticipated character Bane, played by Tom Hardy, would be a villain unlike any which Batman had faced before.

"With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally.

Hardy told Empire that Bane was simply "brutal".

"He's a big dude who's incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It's not about fighting. It's about carnage.

"The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it's nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns.

"He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action."

The Dark Knight Rises is the third and rumoured final film in Nolan's hugely successful Batman series, and also stars Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.